


Seven years of separation

by Mary_the_gardener



Category: Persuasion - Jane Austen
Genre: (part of it), 5+1 Things, Character Study, Drabble Sequence, Gen, Pre-Canon, except it's 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25146469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_the_gardener/pseuds/Mary_the_gardener
Summary: Seven years. It's commonly known as the critical point for a relationship. But what if there is no relationship, what happens in seven years of separation, seven years of absence, how do you grow and change, blanketed by the impalpable presence of what you let go?
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17
Collections: Multifandom Drabble 2020





	Seven years of separation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [annathecrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annathecrow/gifts).



> Just a brief warning: this fic is written using the second person POV, but please, don't see it as a situation in which the reader is protagonist and is supposed to read imagining to be in the fic themselves, it's not.
> 
> Enojy

One

The first year started with you going back to your school town. In its winter you walk down the tiled pavements of Bath, side by side with your closest friend and counsellor, both of you avoiding the subject, pretending it never happened. And with every step you are internally repeating to yourself that it had been the right thing to do, and that you are going to marry and love another in the future. But these words resonate with the voice of the one next to you, while your own, tiny whisper keeps saying that your heart will not change.

Two

The second is the year your eyes briefly lit up with joy at seeing his name next to the one of a respectable frigate, only for that spark to leave you with the remembrance that you have no claims on his accomplishments, nor will they change anything, for he is not yours anymore, for you gave him up. And oh, how you wish he’d ask you again, how you wish he’d come and make you happy again, show everyone that the prudence induced was unnecessary. It’s the year you spend wishing and waiting. Hoping for a letter that never arrives.

Three

The third is when that someone else arrives, finally. And this time your friend is pushing, telling you to go, to take him. And you respect him, and respect her; but you do not love him, and you have learned not to bend your convictions to her reasoning anymore. More than anything, you are still waiting for that letter. Hoping to see his face again, wishing things had gone differently, and comparing: you compare him, Charles - and everyone else – to _him_ , but it’s an unfair thing, the measures too different, the gap too big. He doesn’t even stand a chance.

Four

Then comes the year when your little sister gets engaged. And yes: it is to the same man that asked you, but you can’t harbour any negative feeling. You are actually happy for them, and do your best in helping to prepare for the wedding. You fit your mother’s dress around Mary’s forms and keep busy with arranging the flowers and organizing the carriages. And if amongst it all you happen to wonder how that gown would have looked on you, or which church he would have preferred, you take up one more task and quickly shrug the thoughts away.

Five

And then you’re left in Kellynch, with your father and Elizabeth. You meet daily with your friend and watch your sister’s belly grow riper with every month. Instead, you feel like an apricot that’s been picked from the tree too soon: deprived of the possibility of ever becoming sweet, destined to remain sour. Meanwhile, from the newspaper you gather of his success; and part of you regrets. But another part understands, has learned to see other people’s motivations behind their words and actions, and accepts the decision you had been forced into. Still, you wouldn’t give such an advice yourself.

Six

You welcome the sixth year being an aunt, and close it becoming it twice. In the middle, everything stays the same. As every other year, you send you father and sister to London without you – not that they ever complain - and are left alone in Kellynch, you are mistress of the house for once. Of your childhood house. You revel in the little good things that came from your refusal: every day you take a stroll in that shrubbery you know so well, you visit your baby nephews, you accept your life as it is, not wishing for a change.

Seven.

By the seventh year the feelings and memories of Frederick have turned into a little stone that sits quietly at the pit of your stomach, a little flint that from time to time ignites a spark when brushed with a piece of news about naval battles or even just ships in general. But it dies quickly, dampened by the surrounding fluids. The rest of your life keeps you satisfied enough: the friendship of Lady Russell balances the lack of attention from your family, the interactions of Uppercross keep you entertained. Life flows pacifically like a river in a florid plain.

  
  
  
Eight

But then it’s 1814, Napoleon is exiled and your family highly in debt. It’s sudden, unexpected rapids that abruptly disrupt the stream. You swiftly kayak through them, only to find yourself rapidly drifting toward an authentic waterfall. Because they’re coming. He’s coming. He’s here. The fall is all too long and too short at the same time, the meetings too frequent and yet, in the secret of your heart, too distant. Nonetheless, you glide, secured by the parachute of wisdom that those seven years have built around your mind - others, unprovided, fall hard to the ground - and with an almost intact heart you reach the frosty days of winter.

It’s in the same town again, in the place where you mended your feelings that winter of so many years ago, among the gleaming whiteness of Bath, that another cataract opens in front of you. This time you leap. You jump on your own accord, entrusting yourself to you own devices. There’s a few humps, rocky pieces sticking out of the waterwall, but you are a learned woman now, you know how to avert them or use them for leverage and, in the end, you safely land into Mrs Anne Wentworth.

  
  



End file.
